Muh Muh Muh My Corona (virus)

1918 pandemic was far, far, far worse.

We’re not in the same stratosphere.

We know this because rallies and protests were held all over America in June, and there hasn’t been any mass death from it.

 

You're not wrong in as much as the demographic who's getting sick now are those who are more likely to recover. And, we're getting better at treatments so fewer are dying or needing extensive resources that could lead to others dying who are prevented from also getting them.

But

A few things to consider:
We are seeing spikes in cases and hospitalizations.
The protests were outdoors and while social distancing was minimal, many wore masks. For what that's worth
Also Trump's indoor rallies started June 20. Figure two weeks for most people to develop symptoms, that puts us at about July 4th or so for those cases to emerge. This is a progressive disease so another two to three weeks for things to get bad enough to go to the hospital. That puts us July 18 round about. Then people who did from that are still a little ways off still, so July 20s for deaths to rise from the rallies. Longer still for The others they infected in the meantime.

Tulsa is seeing spikes in cases now.
Big Texas cities are seeing problems now with hospitalizations. Could be the premature openings. Could be the protests (two weeks plus two to three weeks plus a few days puts us on track for those).

The point is people don't instantly drop dead from this. First cases. Then hospitalizations. Then death. As the first rises, we get more of the second. The more of the second, the more resources get stretched and leads to the third.

But, again, more people in younger demos so fewer deaths should be expected but it's still not a good thing for people to be getting this in large numbers.

 

Johns Hopkins, among others, I presume, suggests a 14-day quarantine for anybody who has had close personal contact (within six feet for 15 or more minutes).
Now we hear of athletes testing positive and no talk of their teammates going into quarantine for 14 days. I don't get it.
It's almost as if it has been decided that sports will resume regardless of established protocols.

 

what's the plan ?

 

1918 was far worse. Not even in the same stratosphere. How do I know?

The average life expectancy before WWI - so 1915 - wasn't great, at just 52.5 for men. (This of course included deaths at birth.)

The pandemic year, it was 36.6!

As tragic as any death is in this pandemic - read that again - a lot of the people passing right now weren't even alive to die of the Spanish flu back then.

I have no idea what to do with the positive tests and hospitalizations. I mean that. I'd have to dig deep into the data and figure out if the general stays are longer, how many tests are recurring vs. new, when the tests were taken (my suspicion is 7-10 days ago), when acquisition of the disease was (5-7 days before that?), reason for testing, whether or not this level of testing for people who think they have it, but don't, is wise, etc.

Is any state at "screw it, let's randomly test 5,000 folks" stage? No. So why there are lines and lines and lines of people for testing...do they think have it? Are they showing symptoms? Were they advised to get tested? Are the tests shitty? What?

California has 5.4 million tests. That's more than the entire nation of Brazil.

Above and beyond any mistakes the US has made in application of lockdowns, safety measures, etc, we have the most active, perpetual media engine in the world and, simultaneously, chock full of university professors and scientists everywhere with full, at times contradicting opinions on what's happening. We are in data, opinion and coverage overload. It is very, very hard to make sense of it through the noise.

 

1) I wasn't arguing the Spanish Flu wasn't bad or that this is worse
2) I conceded the people getting sick now are more likely to recover
3) What does this even mean? "a lot of the people passing right now weren't even alive to die of the Spanish flu back then." A lot of people dying now weren't alive during the Spanish flu? Yeah, not a ton of people are 100-plus years old.
4) I said the caveat to your line about we're not seeing a ton of people dropping dead from rallies and protests are for the reasons I mentioned, not the least of which is the lag time between contraction and death.
5) I closed by saying I agree with you that people largely getting it now are not in the demographic to die from it, which again supports your Spanish Flu statement, but we have to recognize a lag between contraction and death, which is not instantaneous.
6) I get it, the Spanish Flu was bad. But so is Covid. It's like saying let's not worry about Spanish Flu because the Bubonic Plague wiped out 25 percent of the world's population. Sure we will more than likely not see deaths approach Spanish Flu numbers. Few reasons for that: Better medical treatments; better medical infrastructure; better science; a severe lack of infrastructure in a particularly important part of the world being devastated from four years of war.

 

this is my shocked face

 

The piece that I think is important to add here is that no nation - none! - is as committed to coronavirus being as bad as the US is, and no nation is as committed to rigorously explaining how poorly a nation is handling it - while simultaneously not explaining the unique aspects of said nation - as the US is. It's what we do. We're hellbent on this being as bad as it possibly could be, while simultaneously proclaiming Americans deserve it being bad because we're bad, or the president is, or something.

There's simply no air for sobriety on this. It's either 98% of the media, or nutballs Alex Berenson/Clay Travis, or maybe/kinda/sorta Nate Silver in the middle.

 

5 bucks says that if you showed Trump this chart he'd laugh because the comedic timing is perfect.

 

From Twitter:
Japan has had less than 1000 Covid deaths. It is 12 times more densely populated than the US, and they have more elderly per capita than any other nation. They never did a complete lockdown. How did they do it? Virtually everyone wears a mask. So simple. We look ridiculous.

 

@The Big Ragu

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